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Sunday, February 7, 2016

Back In The Saddle?

OK, so now it's been over a week since I last blogged. Did Wendy fall off the face of the Earth? Did her TBR Mountain finally collapse on top of her and she remained trapped under the crushing weight of paperback novels until a hunky Greek Tycoon arrived (don't I wish) to pull me free, sweep me in a passionate embrace and bruise my lips with punishing kisses?

Yeah, no. Mores the pity. No, I fell down the work-sleep-work-sleep-maybe-I-should-eat-something rabbit hole. So to fill the blog void, I thought I'd provide updates. I promise to keep the whining to a minimum (hey, first time for everything, right?).

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Reading. What's that again? I haven't really been reading. At all. And this is probably not a good thing since I promised two (count 'em two!) First Looks for Heroes and Heartbreakers for end of February releases. You know, the shortest month on the calendar. I foresee some power reading in my very near future.

What has been keeping my interest is audio books. I discovered that work has three Barbara Michaels books on audio and I've been a swooning nostalgic mess ever since. I pretty much read all the Barbara Michaels I could get my hands on during my teens, avoiding the books with blurbs that were more overtly woo-woo-ish. I started with the audio book of Be Buried in the Rain, only remembering from my teen years that it was one that "I really liked." I really liked it as an adult too, and was struck much more by the romance this second time around. As a teen I read Michaels for the Gothic mystery "stuff" - the romances were incidental to me.

I'm now listening to Black Rainbow, which is a historical and well....not nearly as good as Be Buried in the Rain. But it's amazing how nostalgia colors the reading experience. I think if I was entirely new to Michaels and Black Rainbow (although I read it SO LONG ago, this is almost like I'm reading it for the first time) I'd be entering Minor Rant Mode, but here I am. Swooning Nostalgic Mess. After I wrap this one up, I need to take a break (my hold for the Burt Reynolds' memoir on audio came in - don't judge) and then I'll dive into Someone in the House.

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So I still haven't seen the new Star Wars. And now I've just started watching Downton Abbey.

Yes, Wendy is JUST NOW starting Downton Abbey. This is what hype does to me folks! I bury my head in the sand until it dies down, y'all get ticked off that the show/movie/whatever "jumped the shark" and THEN, I figure it's safe to start watching.

I've got one episode left in Season One. I figure by the time I'm through all five seasons on Amazon Prime, the final season will be available for me to stream or download or buy or whatever.

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Yoga. Yeah, I was doing so well with yoga for a while. I am a librarian, but these days my job is mostly administrative work which means Wendy sits at a desk. A lot. Yoga is a nice counter-balance to desk work. Loosens up the hips, opens up the shoulders, and by the end of a nice one hour session I'm relaxed, loose and sleep like a baby. A baby that had bourbon and Xanax slipped in with her formula.

But then work got busy, I got lazy, and fell off the wagon. With a thud. And not that I'm a svelte young thing anymore, but honestly it is possible, even for me, to let myself go even more. So....

Back on the yoga wagon.

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Here in the States it's Super Bowl Sunday. I have no pony in this race but will watch the game anyway while consuming completely regrettable junk food and hoping for some decent commercials. It's also the signal that the most magical time of year is almost upon us. That's right Bat Cave followers....

BASEBALL SEASON!

Depending on the team, pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training starting February 17.

I'd like to recommend a book for you. THE WRATH AND THE DAWN by Renee Ahdieh. It's a re-telling of the Shaherzad/Arabian Nights story that grabbed me. I would love to hear your take on it. Warning: the second book comes out in May. :)

Well they show the Superbowl here in the UK, so I got the words of your extremely difficult to sing anthem up on my tablet and warbled along with Lady Gaga and then fell asleep about half an hour into the game. What confuses me about American football is the amount of stoppage time - I mean, you could cook a meal and do a workout while they're deciding on a play.

And I am so with you on the yoga. As someone who falls out of bed onto the couch and spends most of the day with a laptop perched onto my knee, I would end up looking like a question mark without my workouts. I'm a HUGE Jillian Michaels fan girl, but there are days when not even Jillian can make me work out, and those are the days when I feel crap, and then they turn into more days and then when I get back on the wagon it is sore, sore, sore. So I do try not to fall off too often, but wouldn't life be really boring if we all stayed on all the time?

I dug out my old Barbara Michaels books after she passed away, but haven't managed to reread them. I loved these as a tween/teen, too. There are too few gothics out these days :( They seem to have gone out of style. I might re-dig them out since I seem to have conquered *knocks on wood* the reading slump.

KristieJ: You honestly didn't miss much. It was a pretty boring game (says Wendy). The highlight for me? I made Buffalo wings. Nom, nom, nom!

PK: Oh goodie - we have it in audio at work! I'm now on the wait list. Thanks!

Marguerite: And the stoppage time is even worse for the Super Bowl because they're trying to cram in as many commercial breaks as possible. Honestly? Super Bowls are often kind of a dud. I can count on one hand the number of times I've watched one where the game has been truly edge-of-your-seat exciting.

I'm back to yoga class tomorrow and while I love this particular instructor? Her classes always kick my butt. Tomorrow could also mean taking a nap :)

Amber: Be Buried in the Rain was really good. Black Rainbow? Um, yeah. Not so good. The other ones I remember liking as a teen were Shattered Silk, Stitches in Time, Vanish with the Rose and Into the Darkness. But those are ones I'm going to have to reread. The last one I can get on audio from work is Someone in the House :(